


Scattered Thoughts

by Wywrd_Artemis



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Drabble Collection, Emotional Trauma, Hurt No Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Minor Injuries, Sympathetic Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), basically just a bunch of lil scraps of stuff, brothers dream and foolish, foolish is a god, i'll add more tags for future fics, oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-23 04:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30049722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wywrd_Artemis/pseuds/Wywrd_Artemis
Summary: just a collection of drabbles and one-shots based on the dream smp! aus, ideas, anything i wanted to write about without doing a full-length fic
Relationships: Clay | Dream & FoolishGamers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	Scattered Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> dubiously canon god brothers my beloved <3 this one is just some angst i wanted to scribble down, have fun lmao

“What were you _thinking_ ,” Foolish said, forcing a laugh to hide the way his hands shook, trying to keep them steady as he tied the bandage. He didn’t want to laugh, because nothing about this was funny, but what else could he do? Scream? Cry? Make things worse? So he laughed, laughed as if he hadn’t almost watched his little brother die right in front of him, if only to keep from upsetting Dream.

Dream smiled, the light in his emerald-bright eyes not even dampened by the fall. It didn’t seem to matter to him that he’d broken his arm, or that he’d so narrowly avoided being hurt much, much worse. “I wanted to fight monsters, so I could be just like you! I was doing really good too,” he said proudly.

Foolish clenched his jaw, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. “Really good? Dream, a creeper knocked you down a ravine. If you hadn’t fallen in water, you could have--” he cut himself off, his mouth becoming dry at the thought. Images flash through his head of his brother, small, broken, bloodstained, _gone_. Because mortals were so fragile, so easily broken by one mistake, by one bad decision. It was the same reason why Foolish tried to stay detached from new people. Not cold or mean, not at all, but… distant. Friendly but far away. Then, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad when he inevitably outlived him, when each attachment slipped through his fingers like grains of sand.

Dream blinked those innocent green eyes, tilting his head to the side. “But I did fall in water! And if I didn’t, I’d respawn, and I’d still have more lives, and even if that didn’t work, you’d find a way to save me,” he said, so confident, so certain, as if he knew it for a fact. “You can bring people back to life. You can do anything, you’re a god!”

He was too young to know how painful death, even one so temporary, could truly be. He was too young to be told of all the times Foolish _had_ brought people back, only to find their souls so worn and tired they begged to rest again. He was too young, and Foolish was too afraid of losing him.

“Yeah,” he said softly, ruffling Dream’s messy hair. “Yeah, I’ll always be there to save you.” And maybe it was a lie, and maybe it was impossible for even him to be always there, but what was the harm? So long as his brother was safe, so long as his brother didn’t grow up so tired of life and haunted by death, wasn’t that enough?

\---

Foolish stood in the small obsidian box, looking down at his younger brother who sat hunched in the corner, his body littered with more scars than Foolish could remember. Foolish watched the faint rise and fall of breathing, wishing he knew the words to make things right, to bring his little brother home.

But his brother was broken, bloodstained, gone.

Dream stood up slowly, struggling to get to his feet, weak from months spent in a small cell. And god, though Foolish wanted to step forward, to reach out and help Dream stand, he couldn’t bring himself to come closer. He felt like an insect pinned to a corkboard, pierced through by wary grey eyes that were once so vibrant and admiring. It’s hard for him to match that reckless little boy with the husk of a man in front of him, but even through burnt skin and tangled scars, Foolish always recognizes his brother.

“Are you proud?” Dream says, his voice coarse and weak with disuse. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, doesn’t ease the tension he holds himself with. The past few months in the prison have obviously changed him. Not for the better--Dream had never dealt with punishment well, only resisting more fiercely. Whatever they were doing in this hellhole only pushed him farther into the darkness, farther from the little boy he’d once been.

“Dream,” Foolish said softly, wiping at the tears building in the corners of his own eyes. “What do you mean? What have you done to be ’ _proud_ ’ of?”

A small wheeze escapes Dream, though it’s hard to be sure if it’s his old laugh or a pain in his lungs. Dream swept his arms open wide, as if gesturing to the cell around them like it was some magnificent achievement. His hands were shaking, barely restrained exhaustion hidden just behind his smile. “I brought back the dead. Doesn’t that make me a god? I’m just like you now.”

“Dream,” Foolish said again, taking a small step forward, unable to keep the pleading from his words. “You abandoned your friends. You hurt people.”

Dream collapsed against the back cell wall, apparently having just expended the last of what little energy he had, still staring at Foolish, his fake smile falling into anger, betrayal, pain. “And I promised I’d be there when they needed me. And I lied to them.” He laughed, a hollow joyless thing, broken with barely held in tears. “I did always want to be like you when I was a kid. So I guess I’ve got what I asked for.”

**Author's Note:**

> idk what im doing but if u wanna vibe on tumblr i'm @sun-is-a-square


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